Touch of Time

The project Touch of Time started with an open call from the Amsterdam Light Festival, a light festival that can be experienced through a boat tour along the canals of Amsterdam. Every edition has a special theme; this years theme was “existential”. Time is an existential element in our lives therefore I proposed a project about time on the busiest location in the city. That is the area in front of the main railway station, a site where time is a major issue. Peasants are on their way to or from the railway station, its an ongoing rush of people in hurry for work or meetings but also tourists who take their time to find out where they are and where to go. These people are an even important audience as the people on the boat tours from the festival. All these people have a different mindset and experience time and their surroundings in a different way. Thats what Touch of Time is reflecting on.

Client

Lambert Kamps

Deliverables

Fotografie
Film

Touch of Time is a digital clock that shows people time as we are used to, but also mirror wise for visibility from the other site and in negative view. Its running faster or slowing down and shows figures and patterns.
The installation is build up like a digital clock, four digits and two dots. Each digit consists out of seven pneumatically moving Tube Lamps. This specific type of lamp is a development of my studio and was ready to be professionalized so I was looking for a purpose of it. That brought my mind on urban displays. Wind, rain, frost and snow had to be challenged.

I worked together with two companies. One on the pneumatic steering part and the other on the lamp itself. We created a perfectly working system that endured all the different weather types.
Illusions of movement are used a lot in urban displays but none of them is actually moving itself. The tube Lamps show that mechanical movement is beautiful and more applications can be added in the future.